KANT, DUTY AND MORAL WORTH Philip Stratton-Lake has taken a fresh and subtle look at the foundations of Kant s moral philosophy, and throws a clear and powerful light both on Kant and on current issues in moral philosophy. His excellent book will be influential in teaching and in research. Graham Bird Kant, Duty and Moral Worth is a fascinating and original examination of Kant s account of moral worth. The debate over whether or not Kant said moral actions have worth only if they are carried out from duty or whether actions carried out from mixed motives can be good is complex and lies at the heart of Kant s philosophy. Philip Stratton-Lake offers a unique account of acting from duty which utilises the distinction between primary and secondary motives. He maintains that the moral law should not be understood as a normative moral reason but as playing a transcendental role. Thus, a Kantian account of moral worth is one where the virtuous agent may be responsive to concrete particular considerations while preserving an essential role for universal moral principles. Kant, Duty and Moral Worth is a lucid examination of Kant s moral thought which will appeal to Kant scholars and anyone interested in moral theory. Philip Stratton-Lake is a lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at Reading University.
ROUTLEDGE STUDIES IN ETHICS AND MORAL THEORY 1 THE CONTRADICTIONS OF MODERN MORAL PHILOSOPHY Ethics after Wittgenstein Paul Johnston 2 KANT, DUTY AND MORAL WORTH Philip Stratton-Lake 3 JUSTIFYING EMOTIONS Pride and Jealousy Kristján Kristjánsson 4 CLASSICAL UTILITARIANISM FROM HUME TO MILL Frederick Rosen
KANT, DUTY AND MORAL WORTH Philip Stratton-Lake
First published 2000 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-library, 2005. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge s collection of thousands of ebooks please go to www.ebookstore.tandf.co.uk. 2000 Philip Stratton-Lake All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Stratton-Lake, Philip. Kant, duty, and moral worth / Philip Stratton-Lake. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Kant, Immanuel, 1724 1804 Ethics. 2. Ethics, Modern 18th century. I. Title. II. Series. B2799.F8 S77 2000 170.92 dc 21 00-038246 ISBN 0-203-98935-X Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0 415 20524 7 (Print Edition)
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CONTENTS Acknowledgements List of abbreviations ix xi Introduction 1 1 Doing the right thing just because it is right 11 2 Respect and moral motivation 29 3 Acting from respect for the moral law 45 4 An alternative account of acting from duty 60 5 Filling out the details: Ross s theory of prima facie duties 78 6 On the value of acting from duty 92 7 Constructivism, autonomy and side-constraints 111 8 Conclusion: absolutely universal principles and context sensitivity 126 Notes 131 Bibliography 146 Index 151 vii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My thinking on the issues covered in this book has been greatly influenced by discussions with Jonathan Dancy. He has never quite succeeded in convincing me of the truth of particularism. Nonetheless, he has shaped my views in moral philosophy in more ways than I would like to admit. I am grateful to the Departments of Philosophy at Keele and St Andrews for helpful discussions of earlier drafts of Chapters 1 and 2, respectively; and would like to thank the anonymous referees for Routledge for their constructive criticisms. Philip Stratton-Lake ix
ABBREVIATIONS I follow the practice of giving first the page reference in the relevant volume of Kant s Gesammelte Schriften, followed by the page reference in the English translation, except in relation to the first Critique where I follow the standard practice of referring solely to the pagination of the first (A) and second (B) edition. Ak Gesammelte Schriften. Königlich Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, ed. de Greuter: Berlin, 1922. CPR Critique of Pure Reason, N. Kemp Smith, Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1985. CPrR Critique of Practical Reason, trans. L. W. Beck, New York, Macmillan, 1956. Gr Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, trans H. J. Paton, New York, Harper and Row, 1964. MM Metaphysics of Morals, trans. M. Gregor, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991. Rel Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, trans. T. M. Greene and H. H. Hudson, New York, Harper, 1960. xi
INTRODUCTION Context From my very first reading of Kant s moral philosophy I was impressed by his claim that only actions done from duty have moral worth, and that no motive of inclination could confer moral value on any action done from it. This claim seemed to me then, and seems to me now, to be a deep truth about moral motivation, and the moral worth of actions. But this position did not sit easily with another view that has always struck me as correct, which is that the fact that I ought to do some action is no reason whatsoever for doing it. If an action ought to be done, then the reasons for doing it are the reasons why it ought to be done, and the fact that it ought to be done cannot be a reason why it ought to be done. 1 Now these two views seem at first sight to conflict. How could Kant be right that only actions done from duty have moral worth if the fact that some act is our duty is not a reason to do it? I clearly did not want to commit myself to the absurd view that morally good actions are those that are done for no reason, but the conjunction of Kant s account of moral worth and the view that the fact that we ought to do some act gives us no reason to do it, made it difficult to avoid this conclusion. Of course I could abandon either Kant s account of moral worth, or my belief that thin deontic terms such as duty, ought, or should, do not give us reasons, but these both seemed to me to be true. The only recourse, then, was to look at Kant s theory of moral worth to see whether the notion of acting from duty could be understood in a way which did not generate this absurd conclusion. It is this that led me to write this book. My aim was not only to resolve the above-mentioned dilemma, but also to present a rational reconstruction of Kant s views which would appeal to both Kantians as well as to those who are more sceptical about Kant s moral theory. This has meant discussing Kant s account of moral worth within a framework in which it is rarely discussed, a framework constituted by a concern for the concrete particular and by distinctions such as those between moral rightness and goodness, between normative and motivating reasons, and between what I call evidential and verdictive moral considerations. 2 Considering Kant s moral theory in this way may seem to some to be inappropriate. It may be thought that it is a mistake to bring alien concepts, distinctions and concerns to bear on Kant s thought. My view is 1
INTRODUCTION that the converse is true. I think it is a mistake to defend Kant s moral theory with reference solely to concepts and distinctions of the framework within which he worked. This is philosophical provincialism. This is unsatisfactory because there are many questions we want, and ought to ask, but which Kant s terminology makes difficult to formulate clearly. These questions can, I believe, only be stated clearly if we utilise the abovementioned distinctions. Furthermore, although Kant was not concerned with concrete particulars, this is, I believe an important concern in ethics. The fault certain Aristotelians make is not to focus on concrete particular considerations, but to tend to do this to the exclusion of the role strictly universal principles must play in moral thought. But a concern for abstract principles which ignores the important role of the concrete particular is an equally one-sided view. The trick is, I believe, to resolve what may be called the antinomy of particularism and universalism, between an exclusive concern for the concrete particular and an exclusive concern for abstract universal principles. There is I believe no such thing as Aristotelian and Kantian ethics, as if these different theories describe different phenomena. There is just ethics, and Kantian and Aristotelian ways of systematising this. My response, then, to those who maintain that my approach is illegitimate because it subjects Kant s theory to criteria it was not designed to work with, is simply to say that Kant s theory both can and should retain its plausibility when subjected to these criteria. Summary of the argument Because I want to appeal to moral philosophers in general rather than just to Kantian moral philosophers, I try, for the most part, to avoid getting embroiled in detailed exegesis of Kant s texts, and the particular scholarly worries these generate. I try, rather to focus on what I think Kant was getting at. The one exception to this is Chapter 2 where I spend considerable time trying to make sense of the many different things Kant says about the relation of moral feeling and moral motivation. I make this exception not because I get some sort of perverse delight from trying to resolve deeply puzzling exegetical issues in Kant (which I must admit, I do), but because I think addressing this particular exegetical issue raises important and interesting issues in moral motivation about the relation between our affective and cognitive sides. What is the connection between our recognition that we ought to do some action, and moral feeling? What is the nature of moral feeling? Is it only contingently connected to this recognition? If these mental states are necessarily connected, why is this? What is the connection between moral feeling and moral motivation? I think a careful study of the apparently contradictory things Kant says about moral feeling (reverence), consciousness of the moral law, and moral motivation raises all of these important questions and offers some interesting answers also. The conclusions reached in Chapters 1 and 2 are negative. Here I reject different ways in which acting from duty might be understood. These critical chapters are necessary, however, since the two interpretations of acting from duty I reject are 2
INTRODUCTION the two most common interpretations of Kant. Consequently, some time needs to be spent showing the ways in which these interpretations are inadequate. In Chapter 1 I argue for the claim that the fact that I ought to is no reason to. I consider John McDowell s argument for this claim and ultimately reject it. In place of this I offer an argument based on what I call the symmetry thesis. According to the symmetry thesis, the reason why a morally good person does what she should, and the reason why she should do that act are, under favourable conditions, 3 the same. Kant requires something like the symmetry thesis in order to maintain an internal connection between morality and rationality, for if there is such a connection between morality and rationality, then morally good people must at least be disposed to act on the basis of the reasons why they should act. Yet if we accept the symmetry thesis, then we must abandon the idea that a morally good person will do the right thing just because it is right. For this will imply what is clearly false, namely, that the (normative) reason why the act is right is that it is right. The best way to avoid this is, I maintain, not to abandon the symmetry thesis or the view that morally good actions are done from duty, but to abandon this standard interpretation of acting from duty. If the fact that some act ought to be done is no reason to do it, then if we are to avoid ascribing to Kant an absurd view, we cannot understand acting from duty in the most natural way, which is as doing what (we think) is right just because (we think) it is right. 4 How, then, is acting from duty to be understood? The most natural alternative way of understanding acting from duty in Kant is as acting from respect for the moral law. But this makes it look as though morally good actions are motivated by a feeling caused by our consciousness of the moral law the feeling of respect, or reverence rather than by the moral law itself. In Chapter 2 I argue that respect is best understood as a complex mental state which includes both a cognitive and an affective aspect. The cognitive aspect is our consciousness of the moral law; the affective aspect is the feeling associated with this consciousness. I reserve the term reverence for this feeling, and respect for the complex state that includes both this feeling (reverence) as well as consciousness of the moral law. The question then is how these two aspects of respect are related. I argue that consciousness of the moral law is not causally related to the feeling of reverence, but that reverence is the way in which we are conscious of the moral law that is, that respect is a reverential awareness of standing under an unconditional law. Now, if we think of respect in this way, then acting from respect for the moral law need not be understood as acting from a certain feeling (reverence), but from a certain cognitive state our reverential awareness of the moral law. But this is not the end of the story. For although this account of acting from duty means that we can avoid the idea that morally good actions are motivated by a certain feeling, it still looks as if such acts are motivated by a psychological state our reverential awareness of the moral law. This is a problem because Kant often says that it is the moral law itself, not our respect for it, which is the one and only moral incentive. 5 Of course we have to be aware of it, for it to be our reason for acting, and this will be a reverential awareness. But it is not this awareness that 3
INTRODUCTION is the sole moral motive for Kant, but its content the moral law. How, then, are we to square this with his claim that respect for the moral law is the sole moral motive? I think this can be done if we note that he describes the moral law as the objective determinant, and respect as the subjective determinant of the will in moral action. I argue that this means that the moral law is the moral motive, and that respect is the state of being morally motivated. In this way we can, I think, capture everything Kant says about respect and moral motivation. In Chapter 3 I move on to consider this interpretation of acting solely from duty, and argue that we should reject it. For to think of morally good actions in this way is to maintain that morally good people will, under favourable conditions, be motivated to do what they should solely by a thought about their maxim (whether or not it can be universalised, or whether its contradictory can be universalised), and this means that good people cannot be motivated to help others when they should by a thought about the other s need. I consider various ways in which this objection may be dealt with, and reject them. Since this conception of acting from duty means that morally good people cannot be motivated to help others by a thought about the other s need, I think we should reject this interpretation of acting from duty. If, however, we reject this interpretation of acting from duty, we must also reject what I call the justificatory conception of the moral law. According to the justificatory conception, the moral law constitutes the normative reason why we ought to act in certain ways that is, it constitutes the normative moral reason. This is because of the symmetry thesis. According to the symmetry thesis the (motivating) reason why a morally good person will do what she should, and the (normative) reason why she should do that act are the same, and vice versa. So if a good person ought to do a certain act just because of the lawlike nature of her maxim, then she will be motivated to do that act solely by this consideration. By a simple application of modus tollens, therefore, we can see that if we reject the idea that acting from duty is doing some act just because the maxim of the contradictory act cannot be universalised without contradiction, we must also reject the justificatory conception of the moral law. But if the moral law does not act as the normative reason why we ought to act in certain ways, what role does it have? In Chapter 4 I argue that it has two roles. The first, and most important, is a transcendental role: the second, is a criterial role. To think of the moral law as playing a transcendental role is to think of it as the ultimate condition of the possibility of moral obligation. Kant held that the sort of practical necessity implicit in our experience of being morally obligated cannot be explained with reference to any object of the will, or law of nature, but must be explained with reference to an action s being subsumed under the form of law as such. It is only in this way that the distinctive sort of necessity involved in moral obligation is possible, for it is only by being subsumed under the pure concept of universality that some particular action can acquire the strict universality required to explain its unconditional necessity. In its criterial role the moral law acts as a criterion by means of which we can 4
INTRODUCTION check our verdictive moral judgements that is, our judgements that we ought, or ought not to act in certain ways. If the maxim of the action we judge right can be willed as a universal law without contradiction, then this gives us reason to believe that our judgement is correct. If we judge that some act is wrong and its maxim cannot be willed as a universal law, then this will give us reason to believe that this verdictive judgement is correct. The criterial role of the moral law is easily confused with the justificatory conception, but these should be kept distinct. According to the criterial conception, the moral law does not tell us why we ought to act in certain ways, but simply gives us a reason to believe that we ought to act in certain ways. In its criterial role, the moral law gives us epistemic reasons of a certain sort, whereas in its justificatory role its gives us practical reasons; and although the reason why we ought to act in certain ways should be able to act as a reason for us to believe that we ought to act in those ways, the converse is not true. We can, therefore, adopt the criterial conception of the moral law while rejecting the justificatory conception. In Chapter 4 I also outline my preferred, alternative conception of acting from duty. I do this by utilising the distinction Barbara Herman and Marcia Baron make between primary and secondary motives. One s primary motive is the agent s reasons for doing a certain action. It has as its content the sort of consideration the agent would cite in support of her action. One s secondary motive expresses some general commitment of the agent that is, the conditions under which she regards the considerations that figure in the content of her primary motives as providing reasons for action. To act from duty is to act from a certain motivational structure which involves a distinctive secondary and primary motive. One s secondary motive must be an unconditional commitment to morality. To be committed to morality in this way is not to have a certain desire, but is to regard oneself as having sufficient reason to act in a certain way in so far as one judges that one ought to act in that way. For morally obligatory actions one s primary motive will be the same as the normative reason why the act ought to be done. So if one ought to because one promised that one would, then one s primary motive for -ing will be because one promised to, with an unconditional commitment to morality as one s secondary motive. To act from duty here is not only to regard the fact that one promised as a reason to, but is to think of this fact in this way solely in so far as one judges that one ought to. The symmetry thesis means that Kant s account of moral worth requires a theory of normative moral reasons, but my rejection of the justificatory conception of the moral law means that he has no such theory. Consequently, such a theory has to be imported from outside. Given the criticism levelled against the justificatory conception of the moral law in Chapter 3, the theory of normative moral reasons must be such that it allows concrete considerations in the nature of the situation, such as the fact that someone needs help, or the fact that I have made a promise, to be basic normative reasons, and thus to enable morally good people to be motivated by such concrete facts. In Chapter 5 I argue that W. D. Ross s theory of prima facie duties satisfies this requirement. But given the way in which it is 5
INTRODUCTION typically understood it will not seem like a theory of normative moral reasons at all. Ross s principles of prima facie duty are usually understood as specifying what, in general, we ought to do that is, as expressing general, but overridable, moral verdicts. But a principle that states that we ought in general to does not give us a reason to, and if this principle is understood as specifying a basic moral consideration, then no justification can be offered for it. It does not, therefore, look as though Ross s principles of prima facie duty constitute a theory of normative moral reasons at all. It looks as though it cannot be used to fill the gap in Kant s account of moral worth left by the rejection of the justificatory conception of the moral law. I think this objection is based on a deep misunderstanding of the very notion of a prima facie duty. Since this misunderstanding is so widespread I devote a chapter to clarifying Ross s theory. I consider the various accounts he offers of the notion and argue that he thought of these principles not as specifying a set of basic, but overridable, duties, but as specifying a set of basic normative moral reasons. But although the principles specify moral reasons, they are not themselves moral reasons. The principles themselves are best thought of as occupying the sort of transcendental role that the moral law has. The normative moral reasons are the concrete particular considerations that fall under these principles, and although these considerations could not be moral reasons if they did not fall under these principles, and ultimately, under the moral law, the principles are not themselves moral reasons for action. If we accept that Ross s theory of prima facie duties gives us a theory of basic normative moral reasons, then we can utilise this theory to fill the gap in Kant s moral theory left by the rejection of the justificatory conception of the moral law. With this theory of normative moral reasons in place morally good agents will have as their primary motives only the concrete, particular consideration specified by the prima facie duty when they act solely from duty. Thus, if they ought to, and the ground of this duty falls under the prima facie duty of fidelity, then the goodwilled agent s primary motive for -ing will be because she promised to (governed of course by the secondary motive of an unconditional commitment to morality). If she ought to and the ground of this duty falls under the prima facie duty of beneficence, then when she acts from duty her primary motive for -ing will be that he needs help. This captures the idea that morally good people that is, those who tend to do what they should from duty will be motivated to help others when they should by thoughts about the state of the person to be helped, while fitting into the Kantian claim that only actions done from duty have moral worth. In Chapter 6 I consider why we should agree with Kant that only actions done from duty can have moral worth, whether overdetermined actions have moral worth, and the moral worth of beneficent actions. I argue that duty is the only morally good motive because only this motive is non-accidentally related to the rightness of the actions done from it. It is non-accidentally related to rightness not in the sense that it guarantees that one does the right act. No motive can do that. It 6
INTRODUCTION should, rather, be understood as non-accidentally related to rightness in the sense that when the act is right its being so expresses the agent s interest in doing what is right, rather than some non-moral interest. But this motive s expressing the agent s interest in the morality of her action is not enough to support the view that no inclination can have moral worth, for if one acts from a non-derivative, de dicto desire to do the right thing, then when one s act is right its being so will also express the agent s concern for the rightness of her actions. The relation of the agent s motive to the rightness of her action must, therefore, not only be non-accidental, but must be non-accidental in the right way, and the right way is the way specified by the symmetry thesis. This rules out even the possibility that a non-derivative de dicto desire to do the right thing could have moral worth, for it is never the case that the fact that the agent has this desire is a normative reason why she morally ought to do certain acts. I then consider over-determined actions. On my account of acting from duty an action is overdetermined if and only if: 1 one s secondary motive is an unconditional commitment to morality; 2 one would (from inclination as a primary motive) in the absence of any moral judgement about the status of this act; 3 in the absence of cooperating inclinations the normative reasons why one ought to would suffice (at the primary level) to motivate -ing; and 4 the action is determined by both primary motives (the ground of duty, and inclination) operating separately, not by a happy marriage of the two. Following Barbara Herman I argue that if the ground of duty is sufficient in the weak sense that one would in the absence of a cooperating inclination, then one might not if some opposing inclination were present; and this possibility is sufficient to show that the whole, overdetermined motivational structure is only accidentally related to the rightness of the action done from it. For whether or not someone with this motivational structure does the right thing will depend on the degree to which acting morally is demanding, or contrary to their interests. This problem can be avoided if we think of the sufficiency of the ground of duty in a stronger sense. According to this strong sense the ground of duty is sufficient if the agent would no matter what opposing inclinations she has. But this strong account of sufficiency is too strong. For whether or not one s action has moral worth in some set of circumstances depends on whether the ground of duty motivates one s action in that situation, not whether it would in some more demanding situation. One could hardly deny that someone s action has moral worth, because they would not do that action if, say, doing it would lead to their destruction, or ruin, or whatever. We must then work with the weaker account of sufficiency in overdetermined actions. But as we have seen, so understood, overdetermined actions lack moral worth. The final issue I address in this chapter is whether beneficent actions can be morally good. Kant clearly thought that they could in the Groundwork, but is 7
INTRODUCTION committed to maintaining that they cannot in the Doctrine of Virtue. This is because he there maintains that imperfect duties require, not the doing of some act, but the adoption of a maxim. Since beneficence is an imperfect duty, this means that we are not morally required to do beneficent actions, but only to adopt the maxim of beneficence. Yet if beneficent actions are not morally required we cannot knowingly do them from duty, and they cannot have moral worth. This seems to me to be a deeply implausible implication. One of the reasons that seems to drive Kant to it is the attempt to introduce latitude in relation to imperfect duties. But latitude can be accommodated without having to abandon the view that beneficent actions can have moral worth. All we need do is think of imperfect duties as having disjunctive content, where the disjunctions are, in relation to the duty of beneficence, determinate beneficent actions. This allows latitude because the agent can choose between the various disjunctions of the particular obligation, and in so far as she does any one of these, she will have done what she should. Furthermore, the agent can act in accordance with this disjunctive obligation from duty, for she can be motivated at the primary level by the reasons why she ought to act in accordance with this disjunctive obligation. Since this way of accommodating latitude allows us to hold onto the view that beneficent actions can have moral worth, I maintain it is better than the way in which Kant attempts to accommodate latitude in the Doctrine of Virtue. In the previous chapters I argued that this account of moral worth is not vulnerable to the criticisms levelled against the other two interpretations I consider. It may, however, be criticised on the ground that it is inconsistent with other key aspects of Kant s moral theory, namely, his constructivism, his view that morality and autonomy reciprocally imply each other (the reciprocity thesis), and his adherence to absolute side constraints. In Chapter 7 I address these issues. I argue that my account of moral worth is compatible with a certain form of constructivism. I concede that on my account Kant s constructivism is not central to his moral theory, but argue that this is how it should be. What is crucial to Kant s critical philosophy is not finding ways of getting others to believe certain judgements be they about the existence of the external world, or about why we should act morally but showing how it is possible that certain things obtain objective knowledge and unconditionally necessary actions. The moral law in its transcendental role is what is central to Kant s moral philosophy. Its constructive, criterial role is a useful aid to moral judgement, but not central to his account of moral worth. I argue that my account is consistent with his reciprocity thesis. This can be seen once we note the way in which Kant distinguishes spontaneity and autonomy. Roughly, an action is spontaneous if the consideration that motivates it does so only by being incorporated into the agent s maxim that is, if it is done for the sake of reasons, rather than merely caused. This is what it means to act on the basis of self-given principles. An action is autonomous if it is both spontaneous and if the reason one acts from does not derive from some inclination or need the agent happens to have, but from the purely formal moral law. Only in this way is the will a law to itself. My account of moral worth is compatible with autonomy so 8
INTRODUCTION understood, because the concrete considerations that act as the primary motive of good actions do not acquire their reason giving force by being instrumental to some inclination, but by being subsumed under the moral law in its transcendental role. The normativity of moral reasons is traced back to the moral law on my account. It is not, however, traced back along a justificatory route, but along a transcendental one. Finally, I do not attempt to accommodate Kant s adherence to absolute side constraints, but argue, along with many other commentators that it is best to separate Kant s views about such constraints from his moral theory. The task is then to show that the application of the categorical imperative procedure does not generate absolute side constraints as Kant seemed to have thought. Particularism and principles I think that this revised account of moral worth in Kant is not only free of the difficulties to which the alternative accounts are subject, but also allows us to free ourselves from the opposition between various forms of particularism and principled ethics, on the one hand, and between Aristotelian and Kantian ethics, on the other. Particularists deny that there are any universally valid moral principles, and that moral judgement is and ought to be context sensitive. Some particularists, such as communitarians, are relativists, but not all are. 6 One could maintain that there are objective moral truths, but deny that these are determined by any set of exceptionless moral principles. Objectivist particularists typically maintain that certain actions ought to be done, not because they fall under some principle, but because they are called for by some concrete particular consideration in the nature of the situation. It is because our duty is determined by concrete particulars, rather than abstract principles that particularists tend to be Aristotelian, in the respect that they think that decisions as to what to do ultimately lie with perception, or judgement. Kantians, on the other hand, object that without moral principles moral judgement will be arbitrary. Now in respect to the justificatory conception of the moral law I am on the side of the particularists. The view that the moral law is the normative reason why we ought morally to act in certain ways has always seemed me to be highly suspect, and I have recently become convinced that it is false. Whatever the reason is why we ought to keep our promises, tell the truth, help others, etc., it is not because the maxims of the contradictory actions cannot be willed as universal laws. My view is that the naïve, common-sense view on this issue is more or less correct and exhaustive, and doesn t need to be improved or made respectable by any esoteric theory that nobody outside a philosophy seminar would dream of mentioning in support of their action. The reason why we ought to help others is because they need help, and for no other reason: the reason why we should do what we promised is because we promised, and that is all there is to it: the reason why we should show gratitude is because someone has helped us out in some way, and that is the end of the matter. 9
INTRODUCTION If it is certain concrete particular considerations in the nature of the situation that give rise to moral duties, then morally good people will be motivated by, and sensitive to, these considerations. The rejection of the justificatory conception of the moral law and moral principles enables Kantians to agree with particularists and Aristotelians about the ground of duty and about the sort of considerations that will motivate good people. This does not, however, mean that they must abandon the idea that moral principles have an essential role to play in morality, or that the moral law is the fundamental moral principle. For the idea that the moral law and particular moral laws have a transcendental role is quite compatible with the particularist s view about the ground of duty, and the Aristotelian picture of a morally good person. By distinguishing these different ways in which moral principles can function we can, therefore, transcend the opposition between particularism and Aristotelianism, on the one hand, and principled ethics and Kantianism, on the other. This in turn allows us to acknowledge the truth on each side of this opposition without watering down either view. This seems to me something to be welcomed. 10
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